HMSS BRoadside DAY 312

Rob Frankson
Mar 18
5 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Data package recovered Procyon – Canis Minor [ Tracking beacon active]

00000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000

Journals 001 – 311 corrupt data [unrecoverable partition information] re-construction in progress

Personal Journal Serene Falk:

Captain HMMS Broadside

Mission parameter – Hunting Ghosts

Classification Secret – Captains eyes only

We are still on track toward the Silos 3 beacon, at least, that’s the assumption. Navigation confirms it. Clyde confirms it. Bonnie disputes it. And somewhere between the two of them lies what we are calling the “truth,” though I am beginning to suspect that word is doing more work than it should.

The relationship between the two ship Ais, Bonnie and Clyde is becoming progressively more fractious. The neural roboticists insisted on duality to ensure all calculations are double-checked and authenticated. Redundancy, they called it. A safeguard against error.

What they built instead is endless conflict.

Both systems are fully sentient constructs, layered with personality matrices designed to simulate human cognition under stress. The theory being that intuition, creativity, and adaptive reasoning would outperform rigid logic in unknown conditions.

In practice, it means they argue.

Constantly.

Clyde is methodical, procedural, relentlessly precise. Every calculation is structured, every decision grounded in probability and precedent. Bonnie, on the other hand, operates on something closer to instinct. She questions assumptions, challenges inputs, and when she is particularly uncooperative refuses to acknowledge conclusions, she disagrees with.

Basically, she sulks

The result is less a command system and more a debate chamber.

At 0900, they spent twelve minutes arguing over a micro-adjustment to our trajectory, less than 0.002 degrees relative drift. Clyde insisted on correction to maintain optimal alignment with the Silos 3 beacon. Bonnie countered that the beacon itself may not be where we think it is, rendering the correction meaningless. Neither yielded.

Eventually, I overrode them both.

It is like commanding delinquent twins, brilliant, indispensable, and entirely incapable of agreeing on anything beyond the fact that I am, apparently, the least efficient component in the chain of command.

Still… their noise fills the silence.

And out here, silence is worse.

The crew feel it.

Even with Bonnie and Clyde’s constant bickering bleeding through the systems, there is an underlying quiet to this region of space that is difficult to articulate. No background traffic. No distant comms chatter. No passive sensor noise from civilian or military movement. Just the hum of our own systems and the vast, uninterrupted black beyond the hull.

We are alone.

Completely Alone

No comms from any of our sister ships since crossing the dead space. No delayed transmissions. No echo signals. Nothing.

Officially, we maintain that communications failure is a known consequence of dead zone traversal.

Unofficially [officer eyes only] it is almost certain that HMSS Hood and HMSS Exeter never made it across the dead zone.

They were not at the rendezvous point.

They did not signal.

They are gone.

And yet…

That does not account for HMSS Penrose.

As she went ahead of us, pushed forward at flank speed chasing what command classified as a “confirmed anomaly.” A ghost, in less official terms.

She had the spare quantum transmitter.

She had the better sensors.

She had the firepower.

And she has now gone dark.

No distress call. No debris field. No signal degradation.

Just nothing

For the record, all available evidence points toward what we have come to refer to as “Ghosts.”

The term is crude, but accurate in effect if not in explanation.

They were detected on the rim colonies just prior to the attacks, faint signatures, inconsistent across sensor arrays. Then, without transition, they vanished. Not retreated. Not cloaked. Gone. As though they had never occupied the space to begin with.

The aftermath speaks for itself.

Colonies stripped. Infrastructure left intact but emptied of life. No bodies. No survivors. No clear cause of death.

Just absence again.

The science division proposes some form of trans-dimensional slipstream, or an ability to phase in and out of our reality at will. A possible mechanism that allows them to bypass conventional detection and engagement entirely.

It is a neat theory.

But I am not convinced

Because it’s the exact explanation you build when you are trying to impose structure on something that refuses to have any.

Because if they can step outside our reality

Then they are not just avoiding us.

They are choosing when to exist with us.

And that implies intent.

And out here, intent matters.

We are approaching uncharted space now. Past the last confirmed beacon, past mapped trade routes, past even the outer markers of military patrol zones. The Silos 3 beacon is the final reference point before the charts dissolve into speculation.

After that there be monsters.

Not in the mythological sense.

But in the very real understanding that beyond the edge of known space, the rules we rely on may no longer apply.

Clyde continues to insist that all systems are functioning within acceptable parameters. Bonnie has begun inserting qualifiers into her confirmations, phrases like “relative certainty” and “contextual alignment,” which I do not appreciate in a navigation system.

At 1300, we recorded a minor anomaly.

External sensors registered a transient mass fluctuation off our starboard bow. Duration: less than one second. No visual confirmation. No residual signature.

Clyde classified it as sensor noise.

Bonnie did not respond.

I have logged it.

Because it felt, well deliberate. And the only break in the silence

Crew morale is holding, but only just.

They are professionals. They follow orders. They trust the ship.

But they also know what has been lost.

Three ships down.

No contact.

No explanation.

And now, no way home.

Our quantum transmitter was damaged during the dead space crossing.

Systems fried beyond field repair. Penrose carried the spare.

But with her gone, our ability to communicate with the home worlds has effectively fallen off the table.

So, we are operating blind. And if something happens out here

No one will know.

Not in time to matter.

I have increased internal checks, routine inspections, system redundancies, manual confirmations layered over automated processes. It gives the crew something to do. Structure. Purpose.

Keeps their minds occupied.

Keeps mine occupied.

Because when I stop and I allow myself to sit with it.

The thought creeps in.

That we are not exploring.

We are not hunting.

We are not even lost.

But we are being led.

Personal note [ Restricted.]

I am not sure if it is instinct, experience, or something less tangible, but I have the very strong feeling we are being tracked.

Not followed in the traditional sense.

Observed.

Measured.

There is a weight to it.

A pressure at the edge of perception, like the moment before a storm breaks, when the air shifts and something in you recognises the change before your mind can articulate it.

Three ships down is not coincidence.

Penrose going dark is not coincidence.

And this silence

It does not feel empty.

It feels occupied.

Clyde dismisses this as psychological projection under prolonged isolation.

Bonnie has not commented.

That alone worries me more than anything.

Because Bonnie always has something to say.

If she is choosing not to then either she does not know…

Or she knows exactly what is out there.

And has decided not to tell me.